St John's Ambulance services are stretched thin

With the Royal Darwin Hospital recently experiencing overcrowding the hospital was placed on code yellow causing non-essential surgery being delayed.

The hospital is now back to capacity. But, what kind of impact has this had on other services such as the Ambulance service?

Today on 360 Katie Woolf spoke with Matthew Easton from St John Ambulance. He says the demand on paramedics is growing each year.

"Demand on Ambulance services around the Territory is increasing by about 10 per cent annually. We assist around 80 call outs per day and transfer around 60 patients to the RDH. The pressure on us is enormous," Mr Easton said.

"We often ask people if is there a different service that might be better to your care? That will help free up our emergency ambulances to go to patients who do require a high level of critical care."

They also discussed a number of disturbing rock throwing incidents which have affected paramedics in Alice Springs.